


lines traced

by SF2187



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Prequel Trilogy, The Mandalorian (TV)
Genre: M/M, dad feelings lol, god damn it it's 6am, intimate armour touching, this is a little brutal
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-18
Updated: 2020-12-18
Packaged: 2021-03-10 20:08:20
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,735
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28152864
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SF2187/pseuds/SF2187
Summary: Boba Fett is not a soft man, but he’s no monster.
Relationships: Din Djarin/Boba Fett
Comments: 36
Kudos: 490





	lines traced

**Author's Note:**

  * Translation into Русский available: [Вычерченные линии](https://archiveofourown.org/works/28195524) by [ValeYKT](https://archiveofourown.org/users/ValeYKT/pseuds/ValeYKT)



> this is incredibly self-indulgent because i love boba fett now. spoilers for the finale!

Recognition. Confusion. Dread. A line of red, then the heavy thud of his severed head. His body follows, crumpling to the floor as life’s tether is pulled from its bones. The recognition dies with the eyes. The hunter remains, as the red stains the grass between the dead and his boots. His expression is placid, but horror roils in his veins. 

The head staring lifelessly into the blue abyss above is one of many. The hunter wants to see himself in those clouded dark eyes, the etched scowl. He finds only his father, dead, beheaded, gone from his life. This thing at his feet is a monster, a ghost, the echo of a man long gone from this universe.

He forces himself to move, to step over the body and retrieve his helmet from the mud. In the visor he sees the reflection of the man he’s killed. Of himself. Of the man he’s lost. One of many, existing only to die. Such is the cursed fate of a Fett.

THE BECOMING

The burnt stench of blasterfire and charred corpses fills Boba’s lungs with each gut-wrenching sob. The din of battle is muffled behind an almighty ringing in his ears. At his feet lies his father’s head. He crouches, fingers reaching for his father’s warm smile but never touching. He’s too afraid, too much of a coward to bear the reality of cold skin. There is no smile remaining, no love. He was all Boba had, everything the world could be was within Jango. 

Boba looks up to see his father’s killer parrying and slashing, dancing through the battle bathed in violet light. A Jedi. A so-called guardian of the peace, a preacher of empathy and love who didn’t hesitate to chop off Jango’s head. The Jedi will not feel regret tonight, will never wonder if the life he extinguished brought more love than pain. He will not think of the child he has orphaned. 

No wonder the Mandalorians swore to destroy the Jedi. Murderers, all of them. Even the one Boba had met on Kamino, who could have stopped his father’s summary execution if he’d really wished. At this very moment, war rages around a child, and not one Jedi stops to help him in his grief. He could die right here, right now, and not a single soul would care. 

Unseeing, Boba stumbles away from Jango’s head to the silver and blue helmet half-buried in the sand. The beskar is cold and heavy in his hands, but it feels right. It is his, now. He presses the faceplate to his forehead, closes his eyes and pretends he is young again, held in his father’s arms. 

“I love you, dad,” he whispers. But love is not enough in this universe.

THE FIRST

The clone raises his hands in defense. Boba grabs hold of one hand, pulling it closer and turning it to inspect the topography of scars and calluses marking the brown skin. The clone doesn’t pull away, frozen halfway between fear and confusion.

He didn’t know what he would feel upon finally finding one. He hoped for cold; he feared familial warmth. Boba Fett is no stranger to anxiety—any child brought to being in the war has grown with bitter fear within their very bones—but this? This is different. This is existential.

The reality is hatred, anger, self-loathing. A twisted wonder as he explores the clone’s rugged hand. 

“What are you doing?” the clone asks, in a voice that sends a shiver down Boba’s spine. An echo of Jango, rougher-worn but so alike. Boba presses his fingertips against the clone’s own, spreading their hands to meet palm-to-palm. They are the same size.

“This is my hand,” he says. “Not yours.” 

Then he shoots the clone through the heart.

THE SECOND

He lifts his helmet from his head, savouring the shock spreading across the clone’s face. This one is old, skin weathered from working on the farmstead that had taken him in. Boba doesn’t know how this one escaped the Empire, and he doesn’t care. The clone is just one more aberration to be expunged from the galaxy.

Still, there’s no harm in lingering on the obliteration. This clone, every clone, has taken something from him, something nameless but still felt. A hole in his chest, an agony ripping through his bones. They are him, and he resents them for it.

They are here and Jango is not. 

“You’re scaring me, brother.” The clone searches Boba’s face. He knows this isn’t right, but can’t place why. “What did they do to you in there?” _In there._ In the Empire. Boba almost laughs. If only this clone knew. 

“Nothing the Jedi didn’t already do,” Boba says. A shadow crosses the clone’s face. The memory of war and loss. The Jedi took everything from them both. Boba _should_ feel some kinship, he thinks. Are they not brothers, like the clone said?

His hand finds the edges of the clone’s face, thumb caressing the rough curve of his cheek. Would his father have looked like this, given the chance to live out his years? Is this his own future, warm beneath his hand? He wonders if there’s a divergence, a point where the one becomes the many.

The clone must see the change in Boba’s face, because he tries to jerk away, hands pressing against Boba’s chestplate. Boba tightens his grip, holding the clone’s head in place with skull-cracking strength. The clone’s eyes flash with animal panic. This is an impossible betrayal, in his mind. 

“Brother, please,” he says. “I don’t understand.” 

Boba throws him to the ground, disgusted at the pathetic frailness of this aged clone. He considers his blaster. Quick. Clean. Easy. He chooses his boot.

A HOWLING VOID

Sitting on a rock next to his ship, scraping gore off the sole of his boot, he considers the emptiness within. Surely he should grieve the death of each clone, born of his father’s genetic sequence. If not for their relation to him, then at least because he is, in a way, witnessing Jango’s death again and again at his own hands.

He feels nothing for them, the empty men wearing his face like a mask. That face doesn’t belong to them, they don’t deserve those eyes, those lips, that careless frown. Clones who had cared so much about their false brotherhood while serving under the very Jedi that had killed Jango. No, he decides. They don’t deserve anything from him.

He sets his foot back on the ground and leans forward with his elbows on his thighs. Having lost momentum, he finds himself unwilling to rise from his seat and move on. The sun is warm here, the breeze cool. He hears the lowing of some animal in the distance and beneath that, the endless whispering of ghosts. 

In another life, he and Jango might have visited this place together, eating ration packs on a blanket in the afternoon sun and calling it a picnic. In another world, he might have been happy. 

In this life, there is nothing left within his body. The only thing that stirs his soul is the fear and pain he causes in his reflections. He wants to feel that pain himself, wants to hurt himself so badly that he ceases to exist.

_One day_ , he silently promises himself. He picks up his helmet from the rock and slides it over his head, sealing his skin off from the warmth of the world. One day, when there are no more clones left alive, he will make himself cease, too.

THE DEVOURING

The blue sky is stolen from him in an instant as he is swallowed into the sarlacc’s gaping maw. His screams go unheard, trapped beneath the sand with him. He had wanted to die. He had _so_ wanted to die. But not like this. Not scared and alone in the belly of a beast. Not dissolved slowly, piece by piece, until nothing remains.

He cries for his father, beneath his helmet. Cries for all the variations on Fett that he has killed. Cries for his own lost childhood. Eventually he cries himself to sleep, emptied of everything that resembles life.

Boba awakens into darkness, a caustic smell filling his nose and mouth. In a fugue state he removes his armour, as if separation from him will protect it from the digestive acid of the sarlacc. If anything might survive, he hopes it’ll be his father’s armour. His own life is less important. 

He feels a slow undoing of his body, a sweet detached burning. Nobody will come for him. Even _Solo_ had someone, but there isn’t a soul in the universe who will mourn the passing of the last Fett. Not the Jedi who had killed Jango, not the Mandalorians who had disowned their foundling son, not anyone in the guild, not even his clients.

The void in his chest stretches, hungry, until it engulfs him. His memories of the past—of Jango’s stories at bedtime, of Jango teaching him to aim a blaster—and his buried dreams of his future—a sense of home, of belonging with someone again—slip away, into the black.

He gives himself up to death.

LOST SOULS

Boba Fett is lost for a long time. There is a man with his face and his body, but nothing more. The man drifts. Survives. Wonders what cruel fates washed him onto Tatooine’s desolate dunes. His name is lost to him, buried deep in the sands of his mind.

His previous life is long gone when word of a bounty on a Mandalorian sweeps through town. The man who is not Boba Fett listens closely, though he doesn’t understand why. The word _Mandalorian_ resonates within him, a resounding chord he can’t still. Like the dune tides, the stories pass through, cresting then fading into the distance. He moves on, following that word. _Mandalorian_. 

As he approaches the epicenter, his memories hit like groundquakes. A father in the rain. Thousands upon thousands of reflections made into men. A purple blade slicing his world in two. Jango Fett, laughing as his son leaps around the room in an oversized helmet. Boba Fett, crushing a clone’s head beneath the heavy sole of his boot. His helmet. His armour.

He finds a woman left for dead by the other Mandalorian and remembers the cold encroaching of his own death out in the nowhere of Tatooine. He finds himself unable to let her die. He finds his old ship at a junkyard. He finds a cocky son-of-a-bitch named Vanth, who no longer has his armour but can tell him who does. 

He finds himself again. And then he finds the Mandalorian.

A FATHER’S LOVE

Boba and Fennec fit together in their own quiet way, not quite friends, but the closest to it either of them have had in a long time. She watches him, as he watches the Mandalorian from afar. 

“You’re fond of him,” she says. “Never thought I’d live to see the day Boba Fett went soft.”

He grunts. “You almost didn’t.”

She lets out a low laugh and settles down next to him on the ridge. He feels a ration bar pressed into his palm. For a moment he considers pushing it away, rejecting her small kindness. But she owes him, and he must respect that. 

“What is it, then?” she asks. He doesn’t lower the binocs. 

“He reminds me of someone,” he says, watching the Mandalorian cradle his strange child in the crook of his arm. He doesn’t need to see the man’s face to recognize his actions; his love.

“Yeah?”

The silence stretches. Boba sighs and puts down the binocs. He saved her life, he at least owes her the truth.

“He reminds me of Jango Fett.” The name is enough.

THE TRAGEDY

Boba Fett lets out a shaking breath as the shadow resolves into an Imperial ship, the silhouette a dagger plunged into his chest. He sees clones, dead and dying at his feet, millions of them. He feels the acid of the sarlacc burning into his skin. Cold beskar against his forehead.

“They’re back,” he whispers. _They’re back_.

War is returning to the galaxy. Perhaps it never really left. The thought scares him more than he will ever admit. Without the war, he could have been happy; without the war, he wouldn’t exist. Now another child has been taken from their father, stolen for the sake of grander plans. He fears more of the same.

A deeper fear: more clones can always be made, ones without the potential for revolt. What will he do if that happens? What can he do? He is only a man.

Boba isn’t prepared for the grieving Mandalorian he finds when he returns. Republic, Empire, they’re all the same. All they do is take. Tear families asunder, father from son and son from father. He’ll be damned if he lets it happen again.

He grabs the Mandalorian’s shoulders and gives him a hard look. He can feel the abject loss pouring from the poor man, leaking between the gaps in his beskar shell as if there was no armour at all. Boba can see his face, without seeing his face.

“Pull yourself together,” he says. “We’ll get your boy back.”

THE SILENCE

The Mandalorian sits silent and still as Boba emerges from his ship. He glances over his shoulder in the direction the mandalorian—Din—is staring, but there’s nothing but dark, empty woods. He takes a seat on the log next to Din and stretches out his legs, enjoying the freedom of the feeling. 

“You ever wish you weren’t Mandalorian?” Boba asks. Din’s helmet turns toward him.

“What?”

“You know, if you could take off your armour. Be someone else.”

“No.” Din clenches and unclenches his hands. “I couldn’t be anything else.”

“Yeah, I had my path set out for me pretty young, too,” Boba says. 

“You take your helmet off.” Boba chuckles at Din’s blunt-headed straightforwardness, when he hasn’t even said he’s a Mandalorian. He’s not sure he is one, not really. Who is he to claim that heritage? 

“Wasn’t raised your way. I can’t imagine if I never saw my father’s face. Never would’ve seen his smile.”

Din thinks about that for a while and Boba settles into a half-sleep, enjoying the silence, because for once it’s shared between two. 

THEIR ARMOUR

Leaving now doesn’t feel right to Boba. He and Fennec are no longer bound to their deal with Din, but his plans can wait at least another day. Boba is not a soft man, but he’s no monster. Din needs him. Or he needs Din.

Or maybe he just wants there to be a need. A way to fix the pain that echoes between them. The Jedi have taken from them both now, trauma upon trauma like a drumbeat heartbeat throughout the stars.

He’s surprised when it’s Din who comes to find him. Everyone else is asleep, having claimed their own spot for what passes as night on the cruiser. Boba doesn’t sleep much these days and it seems that for tonight at least, he’s not alone.

Din stands awkwardly at the bottom of the ramp, looking up at Boba in his ship. His helmet is back on, Boba notes. Easier to hide behind the visor when the world gets too dark. He waits for Din to say something, because he has no idea what to say himself. _I lost my father_ . _He was taken from me. You were both foundlings. You’re so much like him_.

“He’s gone,” Din says, finally. His voice cracks, coming apart with his broken heart. “He’s _gone_.”

“I know,” Boba says. “You look like you need a drink. Get up here, I’ve got some spotchka around.”

Din walks gingerly up the ramp and sits heavily next to Boba, his injuries finally catching up with him now the adrenaline is gone. He clearly doesn’t want a drink, but he does want company. Boba guesses that the marshal is too emotional, the other Mandalorians too pissed about the darksaber. He sits outside of all that, apart from all the rest. Tomorrow, he’ll be gone. 

He doesn’t know how to comfort anyone, let alone a grieving father. He’s the other half of that equation. All he knows is how to kill. 

“What do I do now?” Din asks. Boba sets down the gun he’s cleaning and shrugs. 

“Take back Mandalore,” Boba suggests. He doesn’t quite keep the scorn from his voice and Din snorts. 

“I don’t want the darksaber.” His helmet clangs against the metal bulkhead behind him. He’s silent for a long moment, then asks, “What are you going to do?”

“Tie up some loose ends on Tatooine.” Boba looks directly at Din and forces himself to say something, _anything_ to show he understands. Din’s one of the good ones, he shouldn’t have to feel so alone. “I lost my family, too. At the start of the Clone Wars.”

Din’s hands curl into fists, then release. “I’m sorry.”

“This universe is unkind to people like us.” 

“Not always.” Boba barely hears Din’s words, he breathes them so quietly. The pain in them is undeniable and it pulls Boba’s hand to Din’s helmet. What a gentle man, beneath the armour and destruction. That such a Mandalorian can exist is a surprise to him.

Din doesn’t move away. Boba traces the lines of his helmet, fingertips following the curves. When was the last time Boba touched another’s helmet with anything other than destruction in mind? Din shifts, tilting his head into the palm of Boba’s hand. Trusting himself to hands that have crushed skulls between them. Then he reaches up and delicately, so delicately, touches Boba’s helmet, fingers running along the red lines. Down to the sharp edge of the helmet, to the armour over his clavicles.

Boba feels a hunger, familiar and new. To explore something so alike, yet unlike. To understand, and be understood. To make his. To be remade. To fill the quiet void eating away at his soul, bit by bit.

And this armour, this man in front of him, what a wonderful thing to devour. He takes Din to the floor, pushes his back against the bench. Not forceful, but not shy. Din places his hands either side of Boba’s helmet, and when he doesn’t resist, lifts the helmet. He tenderly puts it beside them.

Boba straddles Din and leans in. Wants to find the blurred line between armour and man. 

His fingers explore the edges of Din’s armour with such reverence. Din makes a sound in his throat as Boba slips off his gloves, then his bracers, placing them softly to the side. Slowly, shakily, Din brushes his knuckles along Boba’s jaw, gasping in awe of the feeling of skin against skin. He traces his scar, his lips. Fingers trembling.

Din has never touched someone else like this before. Boba has never had anyone touch him like this before, not with such softness. 

He takes Din’s arm and guides his wrist to his mouth, kisses it. Feels the warmth there, the thud-thud-thud of Din’s pulse. Din swallows a quiet moan. He pulls Boba’s gloves off and fumbles with the gauntlets, follows them to his pauldrons connected to his entire chestpiece. 

“Mandalorian armour, eh?” Boba asks, voice a low growl. He leads Din’s hands to the releases and lets him lift the weight of the beskar free. His dark clothing beneath the armour is nothing more than bare skin. This is where Din hesitates; he feels the nakedness as much as Boba.

Boba leans in, tracing the lines of the mudhorn imprinted on Din’s shoulder. _A clan of two_ , Din had told him. Now a clan of one. He releases the one pauldron, then the other, runs his hands over Din’s shoulders and down to the clasps of his shining chestplate. Din shivers beneath Boba’s touch, as he releases the armour protecting Din’s heart. He pulls away the cloak, hooks his fingers into the high neck of Din’s undershirt and pulls it down to reveal Din’s bare throat.

Din tilts his head back. An offer, an unvoiced want. Boba draws a line down his neck, watches Din swallow hard. He closes the gap and presses his lips against his throat. He feels the vibration of Din’s small noises, feels a little too much like a predator with prey.

Hands reach behind his head, tugging him closer. He grins and slides his hands down Din’s sides, undoes his jumpsuit from the back. Din gasps in surprise, leans into Boba.

“Cold hands,” he says. 

Boba chuckles. “What did you expect?” His touch flows across Din’s back and Din bumps his helmet against Boba’s forehead.

“Dank ferrik,” he says, gasps. The sound of his voice low and breathless is delicious. Boba rakes his fingernails over skin, wanting more. Getting more. Every little touch sets Din’s nerves ablaze. 

He presses himself against Din, tasting his collarbones, his throat once more. His skin is salty, metallic with blood in some places. Din’s hands find their way beneath Boba’s jumpsuit, exploring in jerky movements. He has _never_ touched someone like this before.

Boba raises his hands to Din’s helmet. Din doesn’t resist, but Boba can’t bring himself to remove the last place Din has to hide. He drops his hands.

Din grips his helmet and lifts it free. His face is beautiful, tragic, heartbreaking, eyes dark and searching. He’s not going to find what he’s looking for in a Fett, but that doesn’t seem to matter in this moment.

His mouth meets Boba’s, breath hot against his skin, hands drawing them together. Boba runs his fingers through dark hair damp with sweat. Instinct tells him to grab Din’s head and slam it back into the edge of the bench. 

Instead, he curls his fingers into Din’s hair and pulls his head back, kissing along his jawline. Din moans.

“What is this?” he asks. Boba growls.

“Doesn’t matter. I’ll be gone tomorrow.”

Din lets out a rasping breath. Everything is gone, or soon will be. This is just for them, just for now. A learning of someone else, an attempt to fit two voids together to fill both. Nothing will be left tomorrow.

Boba guides Din’s mouth back to his. Everything else may be gone, but for tonight they are both still here.


End file.
